RemoteFully remote; async-first across time zones.
Software EngineeringBackend Engineering
About the job
Requirements
Strong Python skills and hands-on API design experience in production.
Understanding of desktop and network topology, including how clients, servers, and their network interactions behave and how to debug across that boundary.
Charisma and the ability to engage directly with customers and leadership and explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical audiences.
Early-stage startup experience from seed to Series A is highly regarded, with prior experience operating amid ambiguity.
Curiosity and comfort operating without an established product engineering team.
Responsibilities
Design and build the product's APIs, using Python as the primary backend language.
Debug issues across application code, network behavior, and the desktop or client environment.
Represent the product directly to customers and the company by demonstrating it, explaining tradeoffs, and incorporating feedback.
Make product-level build-versus-buy and architecture decisions and defend them to technical and non-technical audiences.
Scope work for an early-stage environment and ship practical versions that address immediate needs.
Desired Qualifications
Security or reverse-engineering background, including comfort investigating a system from the outside in.
Experience as one of the first engineers at a company.
A track record of building internal tools proactively to make work faster.
About us
Socrates is an AI-native platform for a new generation of business software. We bring models, data, agents, and applications together so companies can replace disconnected systems with software built around how they work. The underlying infrastructure is built in, giving businesses one foundation to manage their records, run their workflows, and put AI to work.
Our mission is to give businesses greater control over their technology and make it easier for people to create and use software with AI. We’ve raised a $23 million seed round to help build that future.
The Role
We're hiring a Staff Product Engineer to build customer-facing product end to end: the API layer, the Python backend behind it, and enough understanding of what's happening on the wire and on the machine to debug it when it breaks in the field, not just in staging.
What we mean by hacker ethos
We use this phrase on purpose, and we're specific about it:
You go find out. When something behaves strangely across a network boundary or on a customer's machine, you don't wait for someone to hand you a stack trace, you go look.
You understand the layers underneath your code. Desktop and network topology isn't trivia to you, it's how you reason about why a feature is slow, flaky, or insecure.
You'd rather build the small tool that answers your question than guess. Scripts, instrumentation, and one-off debugging tools are a normal part of how you work, not a last resort.
Curious by default. You dig into how things work because you want to know, not because a ticket told you to.
What you'll own
Design and build the APIs that our product is built on, with Python as the primary backend language.
Debug issues that span the stack: application code, network behavior, and the desktop/client environment they run in.
Represent the product directly to customers and to the rest of the company. You'll demo, explain tradeoffs, and take feedback in the room, not through a layer of translation.
Make build vs. buy and architecture calls at the product level, and be able to defend them to a non-technical audience as easily as a technical one.
Bring an early-stage instinct to scope: ship the version that answers the question now, not the version that's defensible in a design review that doesn't exist yet.
What you bring
Strong Python and hands-on API design experience, in production, not just in personal projects.
Real understanding of desktop and network topology: how clients, servers, and the network between them actually behave, and how to debug across that boundary.
Charisma. This role talks to customers and leadership directly. You need to be someone people want in the room, who can make a technical tradeoff land with a non-technical audience.
Early-stage startup experience, seed to Series A, is highly regarded. We want someone who has already lived through the ambiguity, not someone who's curious what it's like.
Curiosity as a default setting, not a talking point. We'll notice the difference fast.
Comfort operating without a product engineering team around you. You're not joining a function, you're closer to starting one.
Nice to have
Security or reverse-engineering background: comfort poking at a system from the outside in.
Experience in a company where you were one of the first engineers, not just an early hire.
A track record of building internal tools you weren't asked to build, because they made your own work faster.
How we work
Fully remote, async-first by necessity given the time zone spread. Small enough that your decisions ship the same week you make them, and small enough that a bad decision is expensive. We'd rather you say "I don't know yet, give me two days" than guess confidently.
Why join us
Join Socrates to help shape how businesses build, use, and own software and AI. You’ll tackle hard problems in making AI reliable, affordable, and secure enough to run the systems businesses depend on. Your decisions will help shape our technology, our products, and everything built on the platform. We value people who take responsibility, move with urgency, and make the work around them better. This is an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to the platform and the company behind it.
Benefits & Perks
We’ve got you covered with competitive compensation, equity, medical, dental, and vision benefits, plus flexible time off coordinated with your team. Alongside federal holidays, you’ll enjoy company-wide summer and winter breaks—dedicated time for everyone to unplug, recharge, and make the most of life outside work.